Doch' moja
by grandSolovey
Summary: Ten years after the events of Batya, Rapture is ruled by Sofia Lamb, an ADAM-gorged monster prowls the sea, and Eleanor Lamb seeks the aid of a mysterious topsider to reunite with her father. But this man has his own motives for helping her, and the question of whether Eleanor can trust him is far from the only thing that stands in their way. (Sequel to Batya.)
1. Prologue

**JUNE 10, 1959 — 3:15 AM**

From the heights of its tallest spire to the depths of its lowest slum, throughout the lengths of its twisting glass corridors and steel-framed halls, Rapture was tearing itself apart.

The intricacies of the conflict, of course, were entirely lost on those who served solely in the city's function. Even Subject Delta, an Alpha series boasting more self-awareness and intellect than the average Bouncer or Rosie drone, had his mind trained on one focus and that one focus alone: the protection of his Little Sister.

Bursts of incendiary light flickered red and orange from one of the buildings that towered above, until the glass shattered outward, leaving the ocean to snuff them out and swallow them whole. Dimly, a sense of threat registered somewhere in Delta's mind. But the threat was far from immediate.

"All done, daddy!"

Delta looked away from the window to see little Eleanor, dirt on her knees and syringe clasped tightly in hand, reaching up for him. Without a second's hesitation, he delicately picked her up and hefted her onto his shoulder, carrying her away from the corpse she'd just bled dry.

"That way," she said, jabbing a finger in the direction of a grassy knoll. "I want to see the roses."

He grunted his acknowledgment, and began to lumber his way up the path to the Glens.

Arcadia had never seemed particularly likely as a spot to find many fallen splicers, but that had changed over the course of the past few weeks. Many more things than just that had changed, but to Delta, all that mattered was where Eleanor's nose for ADAM led her, and of late she'd been finding more and more of it in the lush overgrowth of this corner of Rapture. So far it seemed there was no indication that this visit should be any different from the others.

So far, at least.

"Daddy, look—angels!"

Directly in their path was what looked like the remnants of some battle: bodies lay strewn across the grassy floor, while scorch marks adorned the stone walls in every direction. A burnt figure stood alone in the center of the carnage, propped up with a pole.

He stepped forward to approach the scene, only to feel something solid, something distinctly not _grass_ underfoot; when he looked down, he found he'd trodden on the hand of a crudely severed arm.

"Look," Eleanor chirped excitedly. "That one's in _pieces._ "

That sense of _threat_ once again flickered to life at the back of his mind. But so far as he could tell, the splicers here had either moved on or were already dead.

He gently set Eleanor down, watched her scurry to the nearest fallen body with a gleeful squeal, and turned his attention once again to the burned figure.

Once he was close enough to get a better look, his suspicions were confirmed: its shape was only vaguely human, and its charred remains were wicker rather than flesh. He'd seen others like this dotted throughout Arcadia, though usually smaller and more well-hidden, but he had no idea what their presence here could have meant.

As long as they posed no threat to himself or Eleanor...

"Is that who I think it is?"

Delta turned at once, spotting the source of the voice before Eleanor had even noticed it: one of two men at the far entrance to the corridor, both wearing masks that marked them as splicers. He let out a groaning, growling bellow as he strode closer to Eleanor, readying his drill.

"Shit, what do we do—"

"I don't know—get the doc!"

The two splicers seemed sufficiently intimidated to start backing away. But a yell from behind came quickly after, and as Delta spun around to meet its source, he swiftly shifted gears from intimidation to full-on aggression.

The third splicer had come at them with a pipe, but he stood no chance against Delta's revving drill. As he shook off the splicer's gurgling corpse, the popping sound of gunfire echoed from somewhere up ahead: a fourth assailant, attempting to take cover behind a tree. Bullets glanced off his armored suit as he dashed forward, grabbed the splicer by his skull, and smashed him into the nearest wall until his shouts fell silent.

Eleanor screamed. Delta turned once again to see one of the first two splicers trying to pull her away from her task.

"Hurry up!"

"Just use that plasmid you found, the one in the bottle—"

Their words were barely intelligible as Delta charged the both of them. Eleanor was in danger, and all he could see was red.

But one of them snapped a wrist in his direction, and the red became clouded over with a haze of green. Everything stopped; something whispered in his ear as what felt like a pair of hands took hold of his limbs and forced him to his knees.

"Holy shit, it worked..."

"Doctor Lamb!"

The splicers' words remained unintelligible to him, although it wasn't rage that masked them this time. It was the incessant whispering instead, an ethereal voice that surrounded him on all sides, quelling his mind and stilling his body in spite of all his adrenaline and instinct urging him to guard Eleanor.

 _Eleanor._

"Daddy?"

She stared at him, fear and confusion contorting her small face. He struggled to jerk his head away, to look anywhere but at her, to see anything that would cause him less pain. But an otherworldly hand stroked down the side of his head with a gentle touch, fixing him firmly in place.

Another pair of feet came into view, accompanied by the hem of a long skirt. When his head finally rose, it was to see the face of an unfamiliar woman, a face unmarred by ADAM.

"Eleanor..."

Her attention, however, was focused not on him but rather Eleanor—until she drew back, and her long fingers closed into fists as she turned to face Delta.

"So... This is what's become of my daughter."

The whispers drowned out everything but the sound of the woman's voice. They were beginning to grow softer, but not quickly enough for him to do anything about it.

"Daddy—"

Eleanor reached for him, only for the woman to grab her by the arm and roughly pull her away. His instinct panged—his limbs screamed to rise up and put her through the ground for touching his charge like that—but still those invisible hands kept him weighted down.

"This is not your father, Eleanor."

Eleanor looked in confusion between the two of them, but she didn't reach for him again. The haze was starting to clear, but still, still, it wasn't nearly enough.

"I am your mother—do you remember, Eleanor?"

It took every last ounce of strength and effort in his body, but he was beginning to push back against that weightless grip; he could just barely begin to reach for Eleanor...

"Doctor Lamb! You should get a look at this..."

The other splicers were too far out of sight and out of mind for Delta to care about them now. All that mattered was him closing the distance between himself and Eleanor, a distance that seemed to grow greater by the second.

"Very well." The woman tugged Eleanor closer to herself. "Eleanor will be coming with us."

"What about the metal Daddy?"

The whispering was fading now, fading enough for him to finally hear the bellow rising in his throat.

"This creature has no use to us now. Destroying it would be a mercy."

He could feel it now—he could feel that invisible grip loosening, he could feel control returning to his limbs.

"Whatever you say, doc... Good thing we just found this thing in Langford's lab."

Somewhere in his peripheral view, Delta could detect something being hefted in his direction. But that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was how much closer he was getting now, how he could feel himself starting to get back to his feet...

It was the only thing that mattered right up until the splicer fired a stream of electric gel straight at him, and through the sudden voltage that wracked his body and overloaded his senses, all he could hear was Eleanor's screams.

* * *

 **AUGUST 12, 1969 — 3:44 PM**

Ever since the earliest days of its founding, from the very moment its doors were opened to those first few brave souls seeking a new life below the sea, Rapture had never been particularly kind to anyone who happened to be down on their luck. As it turned out, that was never truer than when the city itself happened to be down on its own luck.

To Augustus Sinclair, it often felt as though no one knew that better than himself. Sure, he'd made a buck or two off the backs of others' misfortune while Rapture was still at the heights of success, but ever since the day Sofia Lamb rallied her forces and took over Persephone from right under his nose, he'd had no end of misfortune himself.

Of course, the fact that he was still alive at this point probably meant he was more fortunate than most others. But he preferred not to give luck too much credit for that one, considering all the work he'd put into his own survival.

Besides, it took a lot more than just luck to get by these days. Rapture had never been a safe place to put much stock in fortune, but with every day that passed, that became more and more so.

Ocean water seeped through the flooded ceiling overhead, flowing in rivulets down the wall and pooling in the cracks of the tiles on the floor. Light still shone through the glass overhead, from forgotten buildings that had so far managed to survive the ravages of time and all of Rapture's other troubles, but every day more of them blinked out. Rapture was crumbling—it had been crumbling for years now, but the state of decay was reaching critical mass, and if Lamb had any power to do anything about it, she sure as hell didn't seem bothered to lift a finger.

Sinclair had known this for some time. He also knew that if he didn't step up his efforts to get the hell out then he had nothing to look forward to but a watery grave, and what good would that be after all the effort he'd spent on keeping himself alive for this long?

All of this was why he picked his way through the train depot, why he willingly put himself out in the open instead of sticking to what hiding places he knew were safe. He only had one contact left in this miserable city, and as long as that contact remained alive, he still had a chance of escape. He still had the slightest chance...

The sounds of a commotion up ahead brought him to a stop at the threshold to the station, and he ducked behind the doorway to keep himself out of sight. His goal was the pneumo tube on the other side of the ticketing area; whatever splicers were squabbling in the space between could go ahead and kill each other, for all he cared. In fact, it'd just make things easier for him.

So he squatted down, pulled out his pistol, and waited, keeping an ear out for any signs of them leaving. He wouldn't be likely to hear those signs for some time yet, he figured, not with what he was hearing so far: gunfire, the unmistakable scream of a Little Sister, shouts from one end, German expletives from the other...

German. With the addition of the Little Sister, something clicked, and he realized that the voice sounded peculiarly familiar.

Soon after came the realization that he'd hardly profit by just sitting by and doing nothing. Not this time, anyway.

He poked his head around the door frame to scope the situation. A man with a gun was relatively close to his position, but—to the splicer's peril, and to his own advantage—not quite close enough to notice Sinclair's presence.

Once he was sure the area was clear of any other threats, he fired at the man's back. It took three shots before he fell to the ground with a cry.

Sinclair waited another moment longer before he stood back up and crossed the threshold, still keeping his pistol at the ready just in case. From his new vantage, he could see the bodies of a few other splicers strewn across the floor.

" _Bitte_ , wait—"

A woman shouted after a Little Sister who was already clambering up into her vent. Sinclair had a feeling he already knew the woman's identity, but it had been so long, and there was no way to be sure of anything anymore in this city.

" _Bitte_ _..._ "

She tried calling down the vent, but to no avail. Once she seemed to give up, she finally turned—and upon seeing Sinclair, she froze.

Now he was sure.

"Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum," he called to her, approaching with something of a casual stride. "Alive and in the flesh, after all these years... Can't say I ever expected—"

"Stop."

Tenenbaum pointed her own gun directly at him. There was nothing in the hard lines of her face that indicated she wouldn't shoot him where he stood.

"Put your weapon down."

Sinclair wasn't looking for a fight—quite the opposite, really—but he wasn't willing to voluntarily disarm himself, either. Still, he stopped and cut his approach short, and put up his hands in a defensive gesture.

"Dr. Tenenbaum... May I call you Brigid?"

"You may not."

"Fine." He shook his head. "What exactly gives you the impression I'd want to shoot you?"

Even from where he stood, he could see her tense at the question.

"The people here are not kind to those who interfere with the Little Sisters."

Sinclair could have guessed as much behind the reason for Tenenbaum's sudden reappearance. Really, with what he'd heard of just where the Rapture Family was getting all of these little girls, he supposed it was only a matter of time.

"Now, if I understand you correctly... Are you meanin' to accuse me of aligning myself with Lamb and her sort?" Despite the delicacy of the situation, he managed to flash her a grin. "Because I can assure you, nothin' could be further from the truth."

Her brow furrowed. "A man like you strikes me as one who would do whatever it takes to survive."

"And you would be correct in that assumption. But as it happens, ah... I hold a rather lofty position on the Family's list of targets to eliminate."

At that, the frown that was already on her face only deepened.

"The Family... Lamb's followers, you mean."

"That's right." Of course, her need to confirm such a simple fact stuck out in his mind like a sore thumb; he could think of only one explanation, but he wasn't yet sure just how likely it might be. "You haven't been livin' under a rock, now, have you?"

Before Tenenbaum answered, she finally, _finally_ lowered her gun.

"I had returned to the surface, until three weeks ago."

So it had been likely, after all. Her answer only raised a plethora of other questions, but although she had lowered her weapon, he still had to play this very carefully.

Sinclair similarly relaxed his stance, slowly putting his hands down and placing his pistol back in its holster. "And exactly what, if I may ask, prompted you to come all the way back down here?"

Despite the apparent lowering of her guard, the frown didn't leave Tenenbaum's face. If anything, the question seemed to make her more guarded all over again.

"Young girls from the surface have been disappearing in droves. I had to confirm for myself that they were being taken here."

Her reasoning seemed sound enough, though the hesitance in her reply left Sinclair some room to wonder. But he could think on that later.

"And you've found your confirmation, I take it," he said with a slight shrug. "What now?"

" _What now?_ " She repeated him with a tone of incredulity, and advanced on him as she continued: "Do you not understand what this means? Sofia Lamb, or whoever is doing this—whoever is continuing _my_ work, whoever is continuing the suffering of these children... Lamb must be _stopped!_ "

"Hold on, now—" He stepped back as she spoke, once again putting his hands up. "That's all fine and dandy, and I don't mean to stop you from it. But again, if you don't mind me askin'... How exactly are you planning to do that?"

She stopped, her face hardening once more.

"I am not the only one in this city planning to stop her."

Sinclair gave a little chuckle at that. "Well, _I_ could've told you that. But I was just wonderin' if you had any kind of plan to get on doin' that."

Her eyes narrowed into a glare. "As a matter of fact, I do. But there is one thing that must be done first."

The sound of an actual _plan_ was music to his ears, though he did his best to keep it from showing on his face. It wouldn't do to let on that he was in dire straits himself, after all.

"So, Dr. Tenenbaum... What _one thing_ might that be?"

Again, she seemed to hesitate, but her glare didn't waver for even a second.

"The Mariner must be destroyed."

At that, Sinclair's blood ran cold.

"Ah..." There was no way he could keep his dread from his face, but he could at least recover verbally. "So you've already _heard_ about the Mariner, I take it."

"I have." If she was at all moved or fazed by his reaction, it didn't show. "And I have determined that there is no possible escape from Rapture so long as that _thing_ runs amok in these waters."

She wasn't wrong. But the idea that any one person could simply put the _thing_ down...

"Just how do you think you're going to manage that?"

"Like I said," she said curtly, "I have a plan."

As she spoke, however, she turned and began to walk away.

"But I am not about to share that plan with the likes of you."

"Wait—"

He had to jog to catch up with her, and although she jerked away when he tried to grab her shoulder, she still came to a stop.

"Just wait a minute, now... I've certainly got no intention of _stopping_ you—why, I think we'd all be a lot better off without the Mariner breathin' down our collective necks—"

"Be out with it, Sinclair," she snapped at him, cutting him short.

"Well— All I'm sayin' is, since neither one of us is particularly _well-liked_ in this town... I'm sure there's some mutual benefit to be found in, ah, us joinin' our _efforts._ "

Tenenbaum gave him a wary look. "You are saying we should work together?"

"That's right." He flashed her another grin, and before she could protest— "Because I've been stayin' alive in this rotten city for a straight shot of ten years by now, and I can tell you nobody wants to get the hell out more than me."

Her brow creased in apparent thought. Sinclair hoped that he wouldn't have to be more obvious with his implications: that she could use a guide who had actually seen the state of things for more than three short weeks, and that he had no intention of double-crossing her as long as they shared the same goal.

After a few tense moments...

"All right," she said with a short sigh. "We will work together. But first, we find a safe place. Then we discuss."

"Fine by me," he replied, "though there ain't much that passes for a _safe place_ in Rapture these days."

"As close to a safe place as we can get, then."

Fortunately, Sinclair knew just where to find one of those. His parcel for the pneumo would have to wait, but that was no matter now, not when he'd just come into the opportunity of his lifetime.


	2. Crooked

**AUGUST 12, 1969 — 5:27 PM**

It had taken several months of planning, but the prospect of escape was finally within reach for Eleanor Lamb.

Months of planning, weeks of honing her abilities, and years, over ten years now of waiting—but it was so close now, so close she could all but taste it. Her Little Sisters had recovered a sample of her father's DNA, and Brigid Tenenbaum had helped them reconfigure the Vita-Chamber system, all according to the plan. All that was left now was for Subject Delta to awaken...and for him to come find her.

But there were still some factors that could very easily interfere, factors which remained out of her control.

The first of these, and perhaps the most dangerous, was her own mother. For all of Eleanor's attempts to conceal her activities from the woman, it sometimes seemed as though nothing could escape Sofia Lamb's notice. When she preached the imminence of Utopia with increasing frequency, when she had ordered the acceleration of Eleanor's ADAM treatments, that suspicion grew into a certainty.

The second was Dr. Tenenbaum herself. Eleanor's only contact with the woman had been through her bonded sisters, many of whom Tenenbaum had been intent to rescue and take under her wing. Her intentions, so far as Eleanor could tell, aligned mostly with her own: to save as many of the young girls as possible and escape from Rapture. But there had always been something guarded about her, too guarded for her to properly discern through the eyes of a child, and her new alliance with Augustus Sinclair—of _all_ people in this city—only put her motives even further into question.

The third, and the one Eleanor considered most unprecedented, was the crooked man.

It was a childish name to be sure, but the more time Eleanor spent observing him, the more stubbornly it stuck in her head until she could no longer dissociate the two. After all, it seemed there wasn't a single part of him that wasn't somehow out of place.

He had first arrived in Persephone some days ago, merely one of a fresh crop of splicers come to serve in Sofia Lamb's personal patrol. There hadn't been anything to mark him apart from the others back then: his clothes were just as ragged, tattered, and grimy; he wore bandages on his arms and a butterfly on his lapel like all the rest; what could be seen of his face beneath his rabbit-eared mask was just as jagged and twisted; and the stance he bore as he hefted his weapon, a double-barreled shotgun, straddled the same line of _still human_ and _vicious animal_ that she'd seen of any other splicer in the cold, dank halls of this prison.

But, as she quickly came to notice, that only lasted as long as he was still in view of those others. As soon as they were out of sight, the jaggedness of his scowl eased into a more natural expression, the hunch in his shoulders seemed to melt away, and his gait became far too human for him to be any ordinary splicer.

This was only the first thing that denoted the man as out of place, Eleanor found. The second was that he often seemed to be quite literally out of place—that is, sticking his nose into places where no patrolman had any right to be, doing what was quite clearly snooping around.

It was all very suspicious, so much so that Eleanor wondered how her mother hadn't noticed. Perhaps she had; perhaps she was simply biding her time before doing anything about it.

After she'd made that realization, Eleanor came to the conclusion that the matter required her own investigation. As long as her mother wasn't actively working to stamp out the man's efforts, after all, there was still a chance that she could use them to her own advantage.

Tracking the crooked man's movements was a simple enough task, as was predicting where he would go snooping next. Quietly slipping out of her quarters was a slightly trickier feat, though not one she'd never managed before; it was actually getting to the place that posed the real challenge, as was remaining undetected by her mother and her splicer guards.

But every challenge came with its rewards, and as she came upon the file room, creeping in through the open door and up to the crooked man's turned back, she was certain she would soon reap her own.

At first, the man was far too engrossed with whatever files he was sifting through to notice her. After she cleared her throat, however, that quickly changed; his whole body went rigid, and he immediately spun around with his gun pointed at her.

Eleanor's first instinct was to freeze. It was the first time in her conscious memory that she'd ever had the barrel of a gun trained directly at her—in her own conscious memory, at least. She'd had no end of memories that either involved or ended with being at the business end of a gun, nearly as many as one for each man or woman or child whose ADAM now flowed through her veins, and all at once they seemed to surge up and out of her subconscious, flitting before her mind's eye one after the other, too fast and too many for her to count.

Before the rush of genetic memory could alter her instinct to freeze—before they could give her the urge to lash out, or to call up one of her plasmid abilities in self-defense—the man pulled his gun away. He had removed his mask, presumably to get a better look at the files he'd been sorting through, and mingling on his face were expressions of concentration and disbelief.

"You're Eleanor Lamb, aren't you?"

She'd had no personal contact with any of her mother's splicers up to this point, but for anyone in Persephone to not know her identity was unthinkable. The fact that this man needed to confirm it only spoke further to the fact that he somehow did not belong here.

Perhaps it meant also that he would be willing to use that gun on her after all. But she couldn't let herself dwell on that now.

She nodded instead, grasping for whatever words would come to her. "And you're the crooked man."

"What?" His face scrunched in confusion. The words had slipped out almost entirely by accident, though without the mask in the way, Eleanor now noticed that even the man's nose was rather crooked as well, as though it had been broken in several places. But before she could explain herself, he quickly shook his head and continued, "What are you doing here?"

Eleanor took a deep breath, quelling her instinct again. She could get somewhere with that question, at least.

"I should ask the same of you," she said pointedly. "I don't believe this room is part of your patrol route."

He scowled, though it still lacked the jagged twist that she had so closely associated with the splicers and their mutations. "What are you going to do about it?"

"That depends," she said, trying to turn her tone of caution into something more coy. "I could just tell my mother what you've been up to."

His grip on his gun visibly tightened, and although he didn't point it at her again, he did take a step forward. "Don't you _dare—_ "

"Or," she cut in quickly, not having expected quite such a violent reaction but still determined not to let it shake her, "or—if you tell me what you're looking for, I might be able to help you."

The idea of it didn't seem to calm him, but at the very least, it brought him to a stop.

"Why would you do that?" he asked warily, more caution in his tone than curiosity.

"Because I need help, too."

She knew there was a certain danger in being honest anywhere her mother could potentially hear, especially to a man who amounted to a complete stranger. But although she had no idea yet whether she could trust him, she knew she would gain nothing here by withholding the truth.

His eyes narrowed. "What sort of help could _you_ need?"

There was an accusatory edge to his words, and while Eleanor couldn't fault him for it, she did wonder for a moment if he—or anyone else, for that matter—could truly believe that she had willingly chosen the path her life had taken so far.

But, again, that was no matter for her to dwell upon now. She steeled her resolve instead, tightening her hands into fists as she answered:

"You tell me, and I'll tell you."

The crooked man hesitated. Really, _hesitated_ was a gentle word for it, considering the looks of indignation, then contemplation, then doubt that flickered over his face in the brief moments that followed. He glanced away for another moment longer, but only for a moment, and then he finally spoke again.

"I'm looking for information about the Little Sisters."

Eleanor wasn't quite sure what kind of answer she was expecting from him, but that certainly wasn't it.

"Why?" she asked, suddenly feeling rather wary herself.

At that, he scowled again. "Does it _matter_ why?"

"If you don't want me to tell my mother then yes, it does."

He inhaled sharply through his crooked nose, and hesitated again before he replied.

"I have to find my daughter."

That was even less of an expected answer. Eleanor hardly knew what to do with it.

"Your daughter?" she repeated, trying not to sound too incredulous.

"That's right," he snapped. "She was kidnapped and brought here to be turned into a Little Sister, I know she was."

It was an incredible claim, incredible for one reason alone: no children had been born in Rapture for years, and all of the Little Sisters in the city today had been brought down from the surface. Which meant...

"You've come from the surface?"

She had so many more questions than that—how had he figured out what was going on, how had he found Rapture, how had he not only gotten down here but how did he even manage to _survive_ long enough to make it this far...

But above the din of her mind rose one conclusion, as the sun she so longed to see with her own eyes might break over a rosy dawn: if he had come from the surface, then surely he could find a way back.

"Yeah, I have."

As she was coming to that conclusion, however, he turned away to sift through the files once again.

"So if you don't mind, I'm going to keep looking."

Eleanor chewed her lip as she considered her possible options. If this man's daughter had been turned into a Little Sister after all—and if he'd been so determined to come here, then there could hardly be any other alternative—then that would put her easily within Eleanor's reach, and that would give him a reason to help her.

Of course, that rested on two assumptions: one, that the girl hadn't already been harvested for her ADAM; and two, that the man wasn't simply lying to her. But the glimmering promise of _escape_ was shining too brightly in her mind for her to set it aside for anything.

"You won't find what you're looking for," she said softly, but not too softly for him to hear. "Not here, anyway. This was where they kept the prisoner records, before mother took over."

His movements fell still as soon as she spoke, but he didn't look back at her until after she was done. "Where _should_ I be looking, then?"

"Mother keeps all her records on the Little Sisters locked up in her office." She clasped her hands behind her back as she spoke, hoping to hide the white-knuckled tightness of her grip. "There's no way you'd be able to get in there, not without her noticing."

He hung his head with a deep sigh before he straightened and turned to face her once more.

"So how is that supposed to _help_ me?"

Eleanor couldn't recall actually agreeing to help the man, but she decided it would be best not to remind him of that. Not right now, anyway.

"If you tell me the name of your daughter, I can tell you where she is."

Assuming that she was still alive, and assuming she had been turned into a Little Sister in the first place. But these were also things that were probably best kept to herself.

His brow furrowed. For a long moment, Eleanor doubted whether he'd answer her after all.

"Susie," he said finally, his voice markedly softer than before. "Her name is Susie... She's got brown hair, and her eyes look just like mine."

The description was vague at best, vaguer still considering the light was far too dim for her to discern the exact color and shape of the man's eyes, but it was enough for a start. "And what's your name?"

His first response was to shake his head. "You're not getting it until you tell me what you want from me."

It was a fair exchange, really, and she couldn't expect the man to trust her when she could hardly find any reason to trust him in turn. But that did little to ease away the nerves she felt over telling him the truth.

"I want to leave this place," she said, struggling to keep her voice as level as possible. "I want to go to the surface, and I want to see the sun... But I can't do any of that as long as my mother has any power over me. I can't leave on my own."

His brow knit as she spoke, and his mouth pressed into a thin line. Once again, he hesitated before making his reply.

"Anders," he said, and glanced away before he continued, "My name is John Anders."

Even the faintest sign of progress was enough to make her heart leap at this point. "So you'll help me?"

His continued hesitation, however, was enough to nearly make it stop.

"We'll see."

His voice was no longer soft but just as quiet, and he retrieved his mask before pushing past her and leaving the room.

Although she couldn't help feeling slightly disheartened, Eleanor knew she couldn't take this as a sign of failure. The crooked man— _Anders_ , she mentally corrected herself, John Anders, probably Mr. Anders to be polite—simply didn't have enough reason to trust her at this point, and really, who could blame him?

That single thought, the very notion of _trust,_ caused something to pang deep within her subconscious, too deep for her to truly fathom, but not so deep that it didn't give her cause to wonder whether she ought to be trusting him as well.

Whether she could trust him or not, of course, this man seemed like her best bet at getting out of Persephone and back to her father, and then out of Rapture altogether. All that remained was continuing her plan to revive him—and then finding the crooked man's daughter...


	3. Catching Up

**AUGUST 12, 1969 — 5:34 PM**

Just as Sinclair had suspected, finding anything close to a safe place had been far easier said than done. Shaking splicers off their trail was no cakewalk, particularly not when they'd already caught Tenenbaum's scent, but eventually their persistence ran dry.

He and Tenenbaum found their shelter in what had once passed for a ticket station, though Sinclair had his suspicions that the spot had been shabby and worn even long before its interior had been looted and its windows boarded over. An electric lamp flickered and buzzed in the corner, casting the only light to be found in the little booth over the map Tenenbaum had rolled out on the floor.

Sinclair watched, having already offered to help and having already been refused. (He busied himself with prying open a can of fruit instead, one he'd found stashed in the splintered desk behind him; evidently they hadn't been the first to use this booth as a hiding place, and he doubted they would be the last.) The so-called map looked as though it had been crudely torn from a bathysphere timetable, and he found himself wondering just what Tenenbaum intended to do with it.

It was only one of a multitude of things he'd found himself wondering about her, really, chief among them being just what had happened on the surface to make her look so haggard as she did now, or just how she had managed to return to Rapture under Lamb's watch and keep herself alive for this long. But the question of the map seemed like the only one that might have any immediate answer.

"Tell me," she said finally, after several long moments of what looked like intense concentration. "What has happened to Rapture?"

At first, he just raised his eyebrows. "Can't say I'm certain how a history lesson will help us move forward any, but—"

She cut him short with a hard glare. "You are the only man I have found in this city who is still alive and still sane. All I have heard is the mutterings of splicers and Sofia Lamb's public announcements; what I need is concrete information."

Although he hadn't necessarily been opposed to giving her that history lesson in the first place, Sinclair could find no fault in her logic, so he only nodded rather than try to argue.

"Well, where to begin..." He looked toward the ceiling as he thought it over, his line of sight tracing over patterns of water damage in the tile. "As I recall, the popular assumption was that you'd been caught up in the explosions at Olympus Heights. There weren't too many survivors out of that, at least none that weren't fightin' for Atlas's side."

In his peripheral view, he could see Tenenbaum duck her gaze to one side. "I was... But I managed to escape."

"Evidently," he said, unable to keep the dryness from his tone. "The popular assumption was _also_ that Jack Ryan didn't make it out, either. But ole Andy never did say anything one way or the other on the matter."

Tenenbaum had no immediate reaction to that, at least none that Sinclair could see. Eventually, however, she lifted her head to look at him again.

"What happened after that?"

"Well, as I'm sure you can imagine..." He scratched at his neck as he considered where to continue. "Jack Ryan being unaccounted for was a problem. Most people thought he'd been killed, sure, but then some people got to thinkin' that he'd started batting for the other team—Atlas's team, that is—and then some people got to thinkin' that Andrew had the kid put down."

Again, Tenenbaum paused before she made any kind of reply.

"What did Andrew Ryan have to say about it?"

Sinclair snorted. "Not a single damn word. Now, with all the fightin' that was going on, I can imagine that he wouldn't necessarily want to _publicize_ the fact that his only heir had passed on... But keeping mum really didn't do him any favors."

She nodded, her gaze having fallen to the map.

"What became of Atlas?"

"Now there's a funny story." He paused. "Not funny _haha_ , mind, but funny in a peculiar sort of way... See, after the bombing at Olympus Heights, he went and made a nice big speech over the intercoms to stir up the people against Ryan, and where a good deal of people were concerned, it worked. But after that? Nobody ever heard from him ever again."

Tenenbaum didn't seem as surprised by this as Sinclair might have thought. "And?"

"Well, naturally, Ryan put forth the proclamation that he'd had Atlas killed... And that's when things got hairy."

There was still no look of surprise, but her brow furrowed instead.

"What do you mean, 'hairy?'"

As he continued, Sinclair decided to busy himself by using the head of his Swiss army knife to fish a peach slice out of the can. This wasn't exactly his favorite part of the story.

"As it happened... While Atlas was still around and raising hell, Sofia Lamb broke herself out of prison, and she had an army on her side to match Atlas and all his bandits."

Tenenbaum frowned.

"She broke herself out of _your_ prison, you mean."

"The details aren't all that important," he said with a quick, dismissive wave of his hand. After a beat, he offered her the can in his hands. "Here, if you'd like."

Her frown remained, and her unbroken stare remained just as cold and stony as ever. He quickly decided it would be best to move on.

"Anyway, she started up with claiming that Atlas was not only alive and well, but that he'd gone and pitched a tent in _her_ camp."

That frown was still on Tenenbaum's face, but now it seemed less likely that Sinclair was its intended target.

"How could she prove such a thing?"

"Ah, now _there_ _'s_ the rub—she couldn't. It wouldn't have been so hard for him to speak up if it were true, after all, but he never _was_ heard from again. But, on the other hand..." He sighed. "Ryan never did bother to present his own proof. Not to the public, anyhow. I still remember it now, him sayin' that the body was _'too dismembered'_ to put on display..."

She glanced down at the map again, then shook her head.

"Enough of Atlas. How did Lamb gain control of this city?"

"Well, as it turned out, everyone who'd already been courted over to Atlas's cause didn't need any proof at all to throw in with Lamb. Ryan fought her off for a good, long while, but in the end..."

Sinclair looked up to the ceiling again, tracing out more of those patterns in the dark.

"It was inevitable, you know. Lamb and her whole damn army stormed Central Control and took it by force." He fished out another soggy peach slice, munching on it pensively before he continued. "Soon after that she got to declaring Ryan, _'the tyrant,'_ as dead and gone. And that's how it happened."

Her frown only deepened as she stared at the map. It took him a moment, but Sinclair realized that the point she stared at was Hephaestus.

"And now Rapture is in ruins," she murmured, barely audible over the lantern's harsh buzz.

To that, Sinclair just shrugged. "Rapture was headed for trouble long before Lamb took the reins. But it didn't help that at some point she seemed less interested in runnin' the place like a proper society and more in preaching about some kind of _Utopia._ "

"This, I have heard." Finally Tenenbaum looked up again. "From what I have heard and observed these past few weeks, I believe I have some understanding of what she is trying to do... But of this, I am not certain yet."

Sinclair found himself wondering about her yet again, about just how she'd managed to figure out such a thing in such a short time. Then again, he supposed she never had been a woman of common talent or intellect.

"But," he mentioned, gesturing with his knife to emphasize his words, "you've decided to take on the Mariner first."

Her brow knit again. "If there is to be any hope of stopping Sofia Lamb, that creature must also be dealt with."

He wasn't so sure about that, himself. But he figured he could leave any arguments until after she was done explaining herself.

"What I have already heard of this _Mariner_ ," she went on, "is that it did not appear until some time after Sofia Lamb took control of the city. I do not know if she created this thing with full intent, or if she created it at all. But I do know how it might have been born."

He considered her words over another mouthful of syrup-logged peaches. Rapture-grown produce had never exactly tasted right, which left it difficult to tell whether or not this particular can had gone rancid. But these days, food was too precious a resource to be overly picky.

"And how do you reckon that's gonna help us any?"

"Fontaine Futuristics..." An inscrutable look passed over her face as she paused to correct herself. "The Ryan Industries compound—Lamb would have gained full access to the area, yes? The laboratories there, deep underground, where we used to perform experiments with ADAM... Those facilities could have easily produced such a thing."

At first, Sinclair preoccupied himself with finding some flaw in her hypothesis. After he truly considered the thought, he found his brows rising instead.

"You think she was doin' some kind of _experiments_ down there?"

"How many girls has she taken from the surface to harvest more ADAM for her?" She spoke with renewed energy, enough that Sinclair wouldn't have been surprised to see sparks flashing in her eyes. "What possible use could she have for so much of it? I may not know this yet, but what I do know is pointing to this as the truth."

"All right, all right..." He finally set aside the can as he thought on the situation further. "So, it came from Ryan Industries... Now, I _do_ hate to sound like a broken record, but how is that going to help us?"

"We go to Ryan Industries."

She pointed to the spot on the map, speaking emphatically and leaving no room for questions or doubt.

"We go there, and we find what caused the Mariner to exist."

It seemed like an awfully simple plan from the way Tenenbaum said it. But Sinclair knew better.

"So, if I'm understanding you right..." He wasn't so certain that he did, but he continued nevertheless: "We get to Ryan Industries— _somehow_ —we dig up the Mariner's birth certificate, and then...what?"

"If we can discover how it was created," answered Tenenbaum, more slowly this time, as though in response to Sinclair's apparent inability to follow her line of logic, "then we can devise a way to destroy it."

Sinclair had a sneaking suspicion that would be far, far easier said than done. But although she fell silent, Tenenbaum didn't seem as though she was entirely finished, so he refrained from interrupting.

"Or, perhaps..." When she did speak again, her words were not so much slow as they were halting. "If it was not always in that state, as I suspect, then perhaps... I might find a way to cure it of its mutation."

Of all the things she'd said in this conversation so far, there was no question in Sinclair's mind that _that_ was the most far-fetched.

"I'm sorry, do correct me if I'm mistaken, but..." He had to repeat it to be sure. "Did you really just say _cure it?_ "

"I did."

"Of what, exactly?"

"If what I suspect is true," she said, looking at the map again, "whatever this creature may be, whether it is human in origin or not... It is suffering from an advanced form of the ADAM sickness suffered by splicers—highly advanced, perhaps artificially. I have been working to develop a cure for the condition in splicers, but..."

She trailed off, and for once Sinclair felt like taking the opportunity to interrupt her. "Again, I truly do apologize, but... I did hear you correctly, didn't I? You said you've found a way to _cure_ splicers?"

Tenenbaum flashed another glare at him. "You don't believe me?"

Honestly, he wasn't sure whether his answer was a yes or no. So he decided to respond with neither.

"Does it _work?_ "

Her glare softened, though not by much. "I have...not had the chance to test it. I had always planned to return here to complete my research, but..."

Again her words trailed into silence, but this time there was no indication that she meant to continue them. Sinclair could think of a few different ways to finish that thought, based on what few inferences he'd been able to make about her over the past few hours, and he considered them carefully before choosing to supply one.

"But you never planned on returnin' to all _this._ "

He certainly never would have anticipated it himself, not ten years ago. Back then, he might have laughed at the mere notion of Ryan's fair city falling so far in such a relatively brief span of time.

That inscrutable look returned to Tenenbaum's face before she shook her head.

"I had suspected," she said with guarded words, "that if Atlas continued his war... I had accounted for the possibility that there might not be a Rapture to return to. But Lamb..." She hesitated, then sighed. "I had never accounted for anything like this."

"If any of us had, we might not be so bad off." Sinclair wasn't actually certain whether or not that was true, but it sounded right. "In any case... Back to the subject."

She nodded, seeming just as glad to switch topics. "The Mariner, you mean."

"That's right." He took a moment to examine the map for himself, judging the distance between their current location and the Ryan Industries compound. "So, if I'm following you right: we want to get at the Mariner, then we have to get at Ryan Industries first... Now, how do we get there from here?"

"It is likely that Lamb has the pedestrian tunnels under watch, if they are not locked down entirely." Tenenbaum's brow furrowed. "I had first thought to take one of the bathyspheres there, or to use the express rail, but..."

There was no question this time as to what she was thinking, so Sinclair didn't hesitate to finish for her: "But anything movin' about in open water is fair game to the Mariner."

"And I would prefer not to take any chances." She sighed again. "I know of only one other way, but it will be difficult."

He raised an eyebrow. "Just how difficult do you mean?"

She pointed to another spot on the map before she answered: Apollo Square. "Here, there is an underground tramway... It took workers to the maintenance access. If I am remembering correctly, that access point will take us directly to the laboratories."

His brow rose even higher. "That doesn't sound so difficult to me."

"I have already been to Apollo Square," she said with a frown. "All power to the railways there has been cut off... Without the power, I could not even get into the tunnel to walk there."

"No power, huh..." Now there was an obstacle if he had ever heard one. "Don't suppose you got any Electro Bolt handy?"

Her frown deepened. "It would require more than one man's plasmids to power that tram."

Sinclair decided it would be best not to take the time to explain he'd meant it as a joke.

"Well, if restoring that power is our only option..." His mind came to one conclusion as he thought it over, but it wasn't one he particularly liked. "Then our _only_ option is to head for Central Control."

Tenenbaum's brow scrunched again, though in confusion this time. "But you said that Lamb took over Central Control."

"And she did. But that's not where she runs the show; as far as anyone can tell, she keeps herself sequestered away in Persephone."

Of course, even in Persephone, she had a great deal of access to administrator control that could affect the city in potentially nasty ways, and nobody knew that better than himself. But that wasn't a detail he felt like sharing at the moment.

"If we can get ourselves into Central Control, then we can have that power switched on lickety-split... Or anything else you might feel like doing."

She didn't yet seem convinced. "It will be dangerous..."

"And there's a single part of this plan that _isn_ _'t_ dangerous?"

To his surprise, that seemed to do the trick; the scrunch in her brow finally eased away, and she looked up at him with a nod.

"Very well." As she continued, she traced out their path on the map. "We go to Central Control, restore the power, use the emergency access duct to reach Olympus Heights, go to Apollo Square, and then we use the tram to get to Ryan Industries."

He knew well that, in practice, it wouldn't be nearly so straightforward. Nothing these days could possibly be so simple as that. But he found himself nodding along anyway.

"Sounds like a plan to me."

" _Sehr gut._ " Now that she was finally done with it, Tenenbaum began to fold up the map. "But before we do any of this, I suspect we will need more weapons."

"And that's a suspicion I can agree with."

Sinclair didn't exactly know where they would be able to find those weapons, but he was glad for the suggestion nevertheless. He hadn't yet found a chance to send that parcel, after all, and if he could manage to do it out of Tenenbaum's sight...

Well, he supposed it didn't make a difference whether or not Tenenbaum spotted one of his coded messages. But he had a feeling that it would make all the difference in the world to his contact, and besides that, the fewer questions about it he chanced, the better.


	4. Daddy

**AUGUST 13, 1969 — 9:00 PM**

A blinding blue light filled his entire field of view, piercing the thick glass of his helmet's visor and washing over the rest of his body with electrifying force.

With the electricity came pain, he remembered—more pain than he had ever known, more than he could ever recall. But the voltage didn't wrack him this time; it didn't overload him until everything turned dark again. It rolled throughout him in waves, pulsing out its ebb and flow, and gradually left him to collapse against a curved glass wall.

He could hardly see past the blue light that still flickered and buzzed around him, but he knew one thing: wherever he was, he needed to get out. He raised a thickly-gloved fist to the wall before him and pounded once, twice, three times, until the glass finally cracked and gave way.

He stepped forward, only to fall heavily to his knees. The light outside the glass was no gentler, no less harsh and bright, and the ground beneath him was little more than a green blur.

But slowly, surely, as he strained for breath, as he listened to the groaning rasp of his voice and willed the pain still thudding in his body to ease away, things began to come into focus.

The first question that came into his mind was not where he had found himself, or even how he had gotten there, but rather who he was.

As his sight began to clear, the triangular mark on the back of his hand, splayed out on the ground before him, came into sharper focus. Slowly his memories began to trickle forth, speaking not to a name but rather a designation: _Subject Delta._

Gradually his eyes adjusted to the light, and it was only then that he lifted his head to take in his surroundings. What he had taken for a green blur was in fact a bed of tall, lush grass, sprawling as far as he could see, leaving a cobbled path only barely visible among the overgrowth. Trees surrounded him on nearly all sides, their branches thick with green, twisting and overtaking one another; the dark wood of their trunks had been spotted with barnacles, each one pulsing in unnaturally bright hues.

There had only ever been one place in Rapture where vegetation could grow like this: Arcadia. But this was not the Arcadia he remembered.

What he remembered...

" _Daddy?"_

Delta's heart squeezed as though it was being crushed by some outside force, a strong enough force to nearly make him collapse again with a cry. His fingers dug deep into the ground as his blood pounded, as he struggled for breath, as his vision blurred and sharpened all over again, as he tried to remember...

Eleanor. Eleanor had been taken from him, and no matter how hard he had tried to fight it, there had been nothing he could do to stop it.

But why, then, was he still alive?

Before he could think too long on the subject, a rustling noise caught his attention. He looked over in time to see a bed of ferns shaking in the distance, and then a silhouette ducking behind a tree.

His limbs felt heavy, heavier than he could ever recall, but he forced himself to his feet anyway, lifting himself off the ground and readying himself to use his drill again. He felt almost as though he hadn't moved in years, but that was no reason not to be on his guard, least of all now.

Slowly, warily, he stepped forward. The silhouette peeked out from its position behind the tree—then, much to his surprise, bounded towards him.

"Daddy!"

Delta froze. In the light, it was clearer than ever that the silhouette was in fact a Little Sister, with unmistakably glowing eyes and ghastly pallor.

But—as he slowly came to realize while the little girl giggled and hugged one of his legs—her matted hair was a pale brown, and her tattered, grubby pinafore was a different hue than the one he recalled. This was not his Eleanor.

The realization made his chest thud again. He had to find Eleanor, and he had to find her as quickly as possible.

With that in mind, he had no time to deal with this Sister. He reached down to take her by the shoulder, to gently push her away...

"Eleanor missed you, daddy," she said brightly, unperturbed by the hand on her shoulder. "That's why she sent me to wake you up!"

 _Eleanor._ Again, he froze. He didn't understand at all how this girl could be telling the truth, but if she knew where Eleanor was...

He knelt down, bringing himself to eye level with the Little Sister, and his confusion made itself voiced through the low groan that escaped his throat. The Sister only giggled; if anything, she only seemed more delighted.

"She said you would keep me safe," she said, and took the hand at her shoulder with both of hers. Her small fingers could barely wrap around the width of his own. "And she wants to see you again soon, but she can't yet."

Delta searched for an explanation in his mind, for any reason how or why Eleanor might have sent this girl to say such things, but he could find none. All that remained was a desperation to believe her.

But really, what choice did he have?

He slowly got to his feet again, still keeping his hand carefully extended for the girl to grab onto. Her face split into a grin as she tugged him forwards.

"Come on, daddy! This way!"

Delta remained dubious as to whether or not the Little Sister could truly lead him to Eleanor, but he had no other leads and no other way of finding them. Besides, at this point, he had little to lose by following her.

He let out another groan as he followed after the girl, letting her tug him along for a few steps before she giggled again and ran ahead of him. The grass was nearly as tall as she was, but she seemed to have no trouble sticking to the path as it meandered past overturned park benches, broken bridges, and a dried-up streambed. Water flowed in a steady stream down from a crack in the ceiling, pouring down onto a spongy growth beneath that spread over the grass and up the nearest wall. There were more and more of those odd barnacles, he found as he kept behind her, glowing a harsh orange amidst the lush greenery that otherwise surrounded them.

This was most definitely not the Arcadia he once knew. But the path they took rang with some sense of recognition nevertheless, and some traces of familiarity yet remained in all the ruined architecture and overgrown foliage.

Eventually they reached a row of booths and turnstiles—or, at least, that was how Delta remembered this place. The booths themselves had been boarded over, and only one of the turnstiles remained. The Little Sister was wriggling her way underneath it when a sudden noise stopped them both in their tracks: a shrill, piercing shriek, obviously some distance away but still more than loud enough to make the glass windows above them shake in their girders.

The girl gasped, and her expression was full of fear as she ran back to Delta's side. It was out of sheer instinct that he put a protective hand at her shoulder.

"Big Sister..." She tightly hugged Delta's leg as she spoke. "Eleanor said that if Big Sister takes me away, she won't get to see you."

The term _Big Sister_ was something unknown to him, and Delta could hardly surmise what she meant by it. But if this Big Sister was something that intended to stand between him and Eleanor, as the girl's words seemed to imply, then he could stop at nothing to keep that from happening.

He looked down at the girl beside him, then knelt with a low grunt to pick her up. His best option, it seemed, would be to keep her as close as possible.

Not that the Little Sister seemed to mind, of course. She giggled happily as she clambered up to Delta's shoulder, her fear apparently forgotten, and pointed ahead.

"Let's go, daddy!"

* * *

 **AUGUST 13, 1969 — 10:44 PM**

Eleanor hadn't attempted to approach the crooked man again since her first conversation with him. She knew there wouldn't be much point in it until she had with absolute certainty a way to gain his trust—or, more importantly, a way to ensure he would help her.

As it turned out, the task wasn't quite so difficult as she might have imagined. All that remained was simply speaking to him again.

She had to wait for the right opportunity, of course. Anders spent much of his time in the company of other splicers, still acting like them, still squabbling with them, still doing his absolute best to keep his head down and the rest of him blended in. But if she'd already figured him out, she knew it would only be a matter of time before the others did as well...or, worse, before her mother did.

It was sheer providence, then, that he took his next patrol route within earshot of her quarters in the pediatric wing. Or perhaps he knew just as well that his time was running out.

In any case, Eleanor only had to wait as long as it took for the splicers who accompanied him to go their separate ways. When Anders made no indication of approaching her, she rapped on the glass partition to get his attention.

At first, he only glanced in her direction. After a moment of what seemed to be deliberation, though, he finally came closer, keeping his shoulders hunched and his stance square.

When he came close enough to the glass to speak, his tone was accusatory. "What?"

Eleanor took a short breath before she answered him. She only had one chance, after all.

"Your daughter's name is Susan Rose," she said quickly, keeping her voice as level as she could. "She was taken from her home in New Jersey, from a little white house overlooking the beach. That was the last thing she saw before she was taken into the ocean."

Even with the mask on his face, Eleanor could easily see his widened eyes.

"How... How do you know that?"

"I have a bond with the Little Sisters, Mr. Anders." She had little time to explain, so she tried to put it in as plain terms as she could manage. "I can control their actions from here, and I've already sent your little girl to—to someone who will keep her safe."

She spared only a moment's hesitation before deciding to keep her answer as vague as possible. There wasn't enough time to explain exactly what Subject Delta was to her, and she doubted Anders would understand if she'd simply called him _father._

Still, Anders didn't seem willing to buy it. "What do you mean, _someone who_ _'ll keep her safe?_ "

"He _will_ protect her," she said with as much firmness as she could muster. "He'll protect her because she is the only one who can guide him back to me—if you'll help me escape from here."

The thin line of his mouth was still set firm with hesitation. Eleanor couldn't blame him for it, but that didn't keep her from feeling the tenterhooks that hung her hope aloft.

"What do you want me to do?"

Her heart nearly leapt into her throat. The promise of escape seemed ever closer.

"We'll have to wait for the next bathysphere to come into port at the station." It took her a significantly greater amount of effort to keep her voice steady this time, but she had no time to stumble over words. "I need you to find a Big Sister suit and bring it here—"

"Why?"

She shook her head. "I can explain it to you once we're out of this place. As soon as you've done that, we'll go through the therapy ward to the docking area, get to the station, and take the bathysphere back to Rapture."

His expression was difficult to discern from behind the mask, but the tone of his voice made his doubt clear. "And you're sure this'll work? Sofia—your mother won't try to stop us?"

"Even if she does..." Really, for all her planning, Eleanor still had to account for the possibility that her mother would find out. "We'll be out too quickly for her to do anything about it. If you can get me that suit, that is."

"And when we're in Rapture, you'll get me back to Susie?"

"Safe and sound."

Assuming she could get him that far in one piece.

The thought came to her rather suddenly, nearly enough to startle her, bubbling up from the bottom of her mind entirely unbidden and unwarranted. The thought of this man being killed was certainly a possibility, yes, but not one she wished to linger on, not in the way her subconscious now seemed to insist.

In the time it took Eleanor to sort away her intrusive thoughts, Anders had looked away, taken a deep breath, and turned back to Eleanor with a hard glare.

"The next 'sphere comes in tomorrow at noon. Do you think you'll be ready by then?"

She very nearly shook her head to help push those thoughts away, until she realized what Anders was asking her and nodded instead. "I'll be more than ready."

He nodded in return, then glanced around, looking up and down at the partition between them. "I'd suggest we shake on it, but..."

"Here." Eleanor pressed her palm flat against the glass. "Will this do?"

Anders eyed her palm for a moment, but evidently he got the idea, as he pressed his own hand opposite hers. It nearly dwarfed her own, and for a brief, longing moment, the sight reminded her of her father's hand against hers.

But that brief moment was soon dashed by another one of those bubbling thoughts:

 _This man is a ruiner._

She didn't understand. She didn't understand it at all, but she drew her hand away regardless, inexplicably feeling the foundation of whatever trust she might have in this man shaking beneath her feet. And for what reason—a voice from her deepest memory, a memory that likely wasn't even her own?

In any case, if Anders noticed her sudden hesitation, he made no show of it.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

With that, he stalked off, looking no different from any other splicer's retreating back.

Eleanor remained where she stood, still shaken by the intrusion of her thoughts. It must have been the gesture; something about it must have triggered something to rise up from the mire of genetic memory in her blood, something so minutely similar to something traumatic experienced in some other life that it could do naught but rear its ugly head. That had to be it. After all, she could think of no reason why she would have witnessed such a thing in her own life, in her own memory.

Sometimes, though, whenever this had occurred in the past, she was left wondering where the difference lay between the memories of someone else and her own. Sometimes—and in this very moment—she was left wondering whether there was truly any difference at all.


	5. Jailbreak

**AUGUST 14, 1969 — 12:16 PM**

Many of Eleanor's memories of her time as a Little Sister had been obliterated first by Dr. Alexander's attempts to cure her condition, then by her mother's attempts to reinstate it. But one of those long-ago buried and blurred memories still remained: the sight of her father as a knight in shining armor, gleaming in the light of Rapture's radiance as he kept her from harm's way.

It was an image that stuck in her mind as she fastened the buckles of the suit Anders had found for her, securing her steel-braced boots in place. She wasn't yet decided if the watertight material felt anything like the armor she'd once imagined in its place, but it would have to do.

"We have to move quickly," said Anders, keeping his back turned to her both to serve as a lookout and for the sake of decency. "That 'sphere came full of another batch of splicers, and every single one of 'em is going to be hot on our heels as soon as they spot us."

"Let them come," she said quietly. Hopefully it was quiet enough to keep from betraying a single one of her nerves. "I'll be ready for them."

She wasn't so sure about that just yet, either. But as she fitted the Big Sister's gauntlets over her wrists—as she watched the light catch on the wickedly sharp needle that now extended from her forearm, as she felt the piercing pinch of the conduit that plugged into her vein—she felt readier than ever before.

The only doubt that remained was Anders—whether she could trust him, or whether he would make it out of this alive.

Eleanor took a deep breath as she slid the helmet over her head, then fastened it into place. She was as ready for this as she would ever be.

"Let's go."

Anders nodded, checked their surroundings, and began to take off without a single backwards glance. The porthole of her helmet was more restrictive to her field of view than she might have ever anticipated, but as long as she could still make out the crooked man's form—wielding his shotgun and striding with a human gait now, no longer making any effort to mask his lack of spliced mannerism—she was certain she would do just fine. She set off behind him, keeping as close as she could.

But they hadn't made it three steps into the therapy ward before a crackle and squeal from the speakers overhead stopped them dead in their tracks.

" _Eleanor, you disappoint me."_

Nothing could make Eleanor's blood run cold like the sound of her mother's gentle voice.

" _You're growing too old for these childish games. You may not understand the importance of our work now, but I promise that you will...very soon."_

She turned her head to see Anders already looking at her, eyes wide in surprise. In the brief moment it took her to realize he was looking to her for direction, she had already made a decision.

"We have to make a run for it!"

He barely had the time to nod to her before he started into a sprint. As she darted after him, she could hear her mother's voice continue:

" _Attention, everyone: A member of our Rapture Family has turned traitor, and is attempting to take our daughter from us. Do not allow him to escape."_

Of course she would turn the whole of the asylum against Anders by pinning this escape on him, Eleanor realized. But their situation had just grown far too dire for her to dwell on bitter thoughts.

Gunshots sounded from somewhere ahead of them, prompting Anders to duck behind a doorway. Eleanor quickly followed suit, though not so quickly that she couldn't see the splicers rallying to each other and collecting debris to block their path.

"What now?" Despite the frantic look in his eyes, Anders' tone of voice somehow remained level. Eleanor nearly found herself thrown by it until she realized he had asked her a question.

"Nothing's changed," she answered, trying to sound as calm as he did. "We just have to get past them—"

"And how are we supposed to do _that?_ " he snapped, suddenly sounding not nearly so calm as he did just moments prior. "There's an awful lot more of them than just the two of us!"

"You think I can't see that?!"

What brief panic Anders had betrayed in his voice was infectious; Eleanor needed to take a breath before she could begin to sort out their options.

"I think I can distract them."

"You _think?_ "

Truthfully, Eleanor wasn't so sure of it herself. She'd never had a chance to properly test her abilities, not until now, but the echoes of her genetic memory informed the rest of her of just what she needed to do.

"I know I can." At least, she knew some part of her did, some part of her that had never truly belonged to her but rather a multitude of lost souls. "Cover me."

He stared up at her for a long moment, gritting his teeth, then finally nodded.

"Do it."

She didn't hesitate for a single second as she stepped back into the doorway and began to launch herself forward. Bullets whizzed past her, stirring up more of those ADAM-borne memories— _Ryan_ _'s raiders on all sides, flashbangs setting the dark tunnels alight and ricochets bouncing off the narrow cavern walls_ —too many to count, too many for her to stop and dwell upon the fact that they were firing right at her.

Eleanor snapped out her wrists— _gusts of heat and smoke billowing back into her face, carrying the scent of brine and charred flesh_ —and sent twin jets of flame shooting right at her assailants.

Just as she'd hoped, their screams were Anders' cue to take aim and fire. She was already bounding away, letting her instinct guide her actions; her mind was too dizzy with adrenaline to leave any room for logical thought now. Another splicer came running at her with a pipe, and she swatted him away with the length of the needle on her arm.

But that wasn't enough to deter the man. He came at her again as she backed away and struggled to collect herself, and he shouted something incomprehensible before he raised the pipe and swung.

The movement felt automatic: she thrust her arm forward to stop him, and the needle neatly pierced his throat. It wasn't until he gurgled and clawed at her that she fully realized what had just happened.

"Eleanor!"

The shout, followed by the sound of a shotgun blast, was enough to return her to reality. Anders was already lowering his shotgun and running to her. Out of the corner of her eye, though, she could detect the movement of another splicer following after him.

"Mr. Anders—"

There was no time for her to warn him. She shot out her wrist again instead, and gripped the splicer in a telekinetic hold before she sent him flying—and screaming—to the other end of the hall.

Anders glanced back for only a moment before he stared at Eleanor with wide eyes. "How did you—"

"Does it matter right now?" she stammered, finally managing to free her needle from the splicer's throat. "That couldn't have been the last of them."

He stared at her for only a split second longer before he gave her a short nod, then turned and ran to climb over the splicers' makeshift barricade. Eleanor quickly followed suit, only to find herself bounding over it with ease. Her limbs had never felt so light, so easily under her own control; never, _never_ had she felt so powerful.

It felt good. But not so good as to quash the fear that still remained in her, the fear that they wouldn't yet make it out of this in one piece.

In mere moments they had reached the docking area, where the passage to the bathysphere station was just a short distance away—only to find several more splicers waiting for them below.

"Up there!" shouted one of them, jabbing a finger in Anders' direction.

"That's him!"

"Don't let him escape!"

The two of them barely had time to exchange a glance, much less formulate a plan.

"I'll clear a path," said Eleanor, as quickly as she could manage, then vaulted over the railing to meet the splicers where they stood before they could ascend the stairs and get to Anders.

More fire flashed from her fingertips by the time she reached the ground, enough to engulf a good number of the splicers that surrounded her before they even knew what was coming. Several more had already made for the stairs, only for her to lift them with her telekinesis and fling them across the room. She darted forwards, heading for the door to the station, hearing shotgun blasts echoing from behind her.

The door was shut tight when Eleanor reached it, but another blast of telekinesis made short work of it. As she used her power to wrench it aside, she glanced back to see that Anders had caught up to her.

"Come on!"

The bathysphere was in sight. It was so close now, Eleanor could hardly tell whether it was the adrenaline or the tantalizing promise of escape, a promise now bordering on reality, that was making her heart pound out of her chest.

She ran for it, closing the distance in mere seconds, only to find wouldn't swing open at her touch. This was nothing to be discouraged over, she tried to tell herself, perhaps it was just jammed...but this would take a more delicate approach than what she had done to the station door.

"What's wrong?" called Anders, glancing over his shoulder at her. He was taking the opportunity to reload, but kept himself facing the station door nevertheless.

"It won't open—"

She braced one hand against the bathysphere's metal siding, pried her fingers beneath the seal of the door, and pulled as hard as she could—and finally, with a hydraulic _hiss_ , the door popped open.

"Never mind, I've got it!" All that remained now was getting to the controls. She had never piloted one of these things before, she knew this with certainty, but somewhere in that sea of ADAM floated the memories of more than one bathysphere pilot, and that gave her the certainty that she would know what to do.

Eleanor ducked inside, reached for the handle of the controls, and pulled...

But the handle wouldn't budge an inch.

She pulled harder, tugged and jerked and tried with all her strength to get it to move without breaking it entirely, but to no avail.

"It won't work—"

"What?" Anders still had his back turned to her, but his tone was appropriately incredulous.

"I don't know what's wrong— I can't move it—"

At that moment, the overhead speakers crackled to life again, sending Eleanor's heart plummeting down to her stomach.

" _There's no need to be so foolish, Eleanor. I would never have reinstated this bathysphere line if there had ever been the slightest possibility that it could be operated outside of my control."_

She'd never really had a chance, had she? For all her planning, she'd never accounted for the possibility that her mother could lock down the bathyspheres themselves.

" _It's time to end this. Return to your quarters, Eleanor, and I will consider allowing your new friend my forgiveness."_

There had never been a chance, not even the slightest...

"Move over."

It was Anders' voice that startled her back to reality, startled enough that she complied without thinking. He climbed into the bathysphere, setting his shotgun down on the seat as he eyed the control panel.

"I can try to hack the controls."

At this point, the very thought of him being able to undo whatever her mother had just done struck Eleanor as outlandish. "I don't—"

Before she could finish that thought, a loud, bellowing roar interrupted her—not the sound of a Big Daddy, but something distinctly more human. She snapped up to see a huge, hulking splicer at the far end of the station, and it was beginning to charge right at them.

Whatever despair had been clouding her mind just moments ago evaporated in an instant.

"Do whatever you can," she shouted back to Anders as she climbed back out of the bathysphere. "I'll deal with him!"

"Wait, Eleanor—"

His words were already lost to her as she leapt at the splicer, already extending her wrists to call up more flame—but he swatted her out of the air instead.

She hit the ground in a daze, barely able to see past the stars in her blurred field of view. Before she could gather enough of herself to get back to her feet, she felt herself being lifted instead, lifted roughly off the ground by her helmet, and her vision cleared to see the hulk of a splicer snarling in her face.

Briefly, a memory flickered across the front of her mind: a clear, visceral sensation of lifting another by the throat, of slamming that other back into the ground and up again, of gripping a windpipe so tightly beneath her fist it would have taken no effort at all to simply crush it in her grasp...

This splicer, Eleanor quickly realized, had no recognition of her in this suit. He, perhaps like all the others so far, would kill her if she gave him the chance.

She grabbed at his massive wrist with one arm, which gave her the leverage to jab her needle into his forearm. When he howled in pain, she took the chance to swing her legs up and kick off his chest, wrenching herself out of his grip and back to the ground.

She couldn't afford to make a second mistake.

"You bloody _bitch!_ "

This time Eleanor waited until the splicer lunged at her before she leaped forwards, vaulting herself over his shoulders and onto his back, where she could plunge the needle into the back of his neck.

His pained cry was even louder, but he still wasn't entirely down for the count. He staggered about, desperately reaching back for her to pull her down, but she deftly kept out of his grasp and held on for dear life.

What she hadn't realized in the heat of the moment, though, was that her needle still very much functioned as a drain for ADAM, and that its conduit provided a direct channel into her bloodstream—

 _Once he_ _'d started he just couldn't stop, really— Just one shot of SportBoost wasn't enough, it had never been enough, he just needed a little more— He hadn't accounted for all the visions that came after, or the itch beneath his skin that he could never scratch, or the way his anger just got ahead of him sometimes, and really, he hadn't meant to break that woman's spine— Dr. Lamb was the only one who could ever bring him peace, the only one left in this whole rotten city who would ever tell him that he mattered, who would ever speak to him in such a gentle voice, who would ever promise him of better things yet to come—_

"Eleanor!"

Yet again, it was Anders' shouting voice that brought her back to reality. The splicer lay crumpled on the ground beneath her, and the bathysphere, now some distance away from her, had begun to move.

She couldn't run fast enough. The door swung shut as she reached the platform, and by the time she reached the platform's end, it had already begun to descend into the waters.

No. No, no, _no._ She had been so close, so _close_ _..._ She couldn't give up now, she had to get _into that bathysphere_ _..._

She hardly knew what happened next. A violet haze clouded her sight, and she felt as though her body was being pulled in every direction at once—and then she was tumbling onto the floor of the bathysphere, to the sound of Anders' surprised cry.

"How— What did you just do?!"

Eleanor's head was splitting, and the rest of her felt too dizzy to move, but she at least managed to pull herself up to the seat as she searched for an answer.

"I... I don't know."

Truthfully, she hadn't even known she could do that. Which was a pity, she soon decided, or else their entire flight through Persephone might have been made far less daunting.

But as she gathered more of her wits, and as the darkened bathysphere tunnel broke into bright blue-green, illuminated by the otherworldly light that shone from the cavern beneath Persephone, the realization began to sink in: she'd done it.

She'd made it out of Persephone, and now she was going back to Rapture.

She was going to see her father again.

 _She_ _'d done it._

As she struggled to keep her elation contained, she heard a loud sigh from Anders.

"I can't believe we actually made it."

Eleanor took a deep breath before she responded; she knew perfectly well they weren't out of the woods just yet, after all, no matter how close to the edge of those woods they might be.

"We haven't quite made it yet. We still have to find somewhere to dock in Rapture, and then—"

Another harsh crackle interrupted her. Eleanor's heart almost stopped before she realized it was coming from the service radio attached to the wall of the bathysphere.

" _Eleanor."_

But the sound of her mother's voice nearly made it stop all over again.

" _I don't know how you managed to pilot that bathysphere, but I need you to listen to me very carefully: I only forbade you from it in order to protect you."_

At that, however, she felt a sudden burst of rage boil up from the pit of her stomach. She reached across Anders to grab the service radio and speak directly into it.

"Protect me? You wanted to _protect_ me?" The thought nearly made her laugh. "You really don't have any idea just what you've _done_ to me, do you? The only one I've ever needed any protection from is _you!_ "

To her chagrin, her mother's voice remained as cool and collected as ever. Had her anger not overtaken her other senses, though, Eleanor might have detected a note of urgency in the pace of her words.

" _All I have ever done is raise you with love and care, Eleanor. Never once have I wished any harm to come to you...which is why I need you to turn that bathysphere around and return here immediately."_

"No." Her grip on the radio was shaking. "No, I won't. I'm going to be _free_ , mother, whether you like it or not, and I'm going to make my _own_ decisions for my _own_ life—no matter how much you try to stop me!"

All that followed was a few long seconds of silence. Eleanor had expected another cajoling response, but not this.

" _You made your escape in a stolen Big Sister suit, correct?"_

That sort of response was something Eleanor had expected even less.

"Yes," she said warily, unable to bring herself to ignore the question.

" _Then I can only hope that it will keep you safe."_

After that, the connection went dead.

Eleanor felt a chill travel down her spine and into her toes. Her mother had never been one to relent so easily, and for her to do so now seemed ominously out of place.

Still, she couldn't let it shake her, not when she was so close to her goal. She just had to put the radio away...

"What the hell is that?"

But Anders was in her way, leaning so far forward in his seat that he blocked her reach entirely. Rather than let herself be frustrated by it, she decided to see what he was looking at, craning her neck to look upwards through the bathysphere porthole.

They were drifting past a trio of buildings, one towering over and flanked by the other two. For all the lights of the city, their shapes were difficult to discern through the murky depths, save the flickering neon sign that rotated slowly at the head of the tower nearest them.

It was the sign that triggered her memory this time—a vast multitude of memories, far more than she had ever known at once, each and every one hearkening back to days when Rapture still shone with glamour and glory in spades...

"That's—"

She could hardly finish her sentence when the bathysphere suddenly shuddered, rocked, and bobbed off its path.

Whatever attention either of them might have had focused on the scenery was now completely gone. Anders' eyes darted around the bathysphere as he gripped the seat to keep himself upright.

"What was that?"

"I don't—"

But before she could finish that thought, another suddenly came to her—the one thing she had never once accounted for, that she had never worked into her plans for doubt that she would even get this far, that she had never dared to imagine would put itself between her and freedom.

 _The Mariner._

The bathysphere suddenly lurched to a stop, flinging them both to the floor. Eleanor barely had a chance to pick herself up before the sound of screeching metal surrounded them on all sides, and three massive talons plunged down through the hull above them and up through the floor beneath them.

She could hardly tell whose shriek was louder, hers or Anders', but that was the absolute last thing on her mind. The bathysphere swung hard to one side, then even harder to the other, spinning and taking on water as it violently careened off-course.

The next thing Eleanor knew, the bathysphere had finally come to a crashing stop—but seawater was spraying through the punctures all around them, and the hull was beginning to cave in from the pressure. Anders' still form lay nearly face-down in the pooling water; from the blood on his head, Eleanor could hardly tell if he'd been killed or simply knocked unconscious by whatever collision had brought them to a halt.

 _Think._ She had to think carefully, and she had to act just as quickly. With the suit, she could probably survive for a time in the open water, but with the Mariner still about, she wouldn't have a chance at swimming to safety. Anders—assuming he was still alive—wasn't nearly so lucky on either count.

Through the porthole, she could finally see their surroundings: another flickering sign suspended on an artificial outcropping, now partially wrecked by the bathysphere. In front of them was a sheet of glass, and through the shimmering light that surrounded them, she could vaguely discern the interior on the other side.

They were mere feet from safety, if she could just get there—if she could will the both of them there...

Eleanor had no idea if her newfound power extended quite so far, but she had no choice but to at least try.

She hauled Anders up out of the water, away from the glass of the bathysphere door as it began to crack, and concentrated with all her might as she held his limp body close, until her sight was once more overtaken by that bright purple haze.


	6. Ghosts

**AUGUST 14, 1969 — ?: ? PM**

When she began to stir, Eleanor found the world around her had been suffused with a soft golden light.

Her body felt heavy, too heavy for her to lift herself up off the smooth tiled floor. A crooning voice sang in the distance, gently crackling through unseen speakers, echoing in waves through the gilded thresholds at either end of the room.

" _Unbelievable!"_

A sense of rage flickered somewhere in her heart, sparking to life with a peculiar warmth that began to spread throughout her very limbs. But still she could not will herself to move.

A ghostly figure paced the floor in front of her, its translucent form appearing cold and alien amidst the golden light, until it turned on its heel and violently ripped down a poster from its frame on the wall.

" _Ruined, everything's been goddamn_ ruined _—_ _"_

Another ghost approached from the left, hands raised in an appeasing gesture. The first only turned and swung at it, with the crumpled poster still held tight in its clenched fist.

" _All because that goddamn Kraut couldn't keep her goddamn mouth shut!"_

The words sank into her like venom, flooding her senses with hot-blooded fury. She didn't know why, or where it had come from, but this anger was like none she had ever known.

" _Everything..."_

" _Easy."_ The other ghost took its chance to speak in a calm, wavering voice. _"Not all is lost just yet—"_

" _Shut up."_

The fury in her blood could not be contained. Eleanor felt near to bursting with it.

" _Do you have any goddamn idea just how much time and money I've poured into this little_ investment _...all for it to fall apart on account of one goddamn_ flatfoot _who jumped the gun? Do you?!_ _"_

The ghost stalked away with a frustrated howl, the sound of it shaking Eleanor to her very bones, and started to rip the poster apart.

" _But we have the investigator."_

The other ghost's voice remained just as calm as before. Eleanor could still feel the rage thrumming in her veins, but the first one finally fell still.

" _We do... And we've got that little monster, don't we?"_

That spark of fury had begun to sputter out, only to stoke itself into something closer to hunger. Eleanor felt a cold weight in the pit of her gut as she struggled to keep it from overtaking her all over again.

" _Get the girl, get the private eye, and bring them both to the Silverfin. Do whatever you have to, as long as you keep the bastard_ alive. _Got it?_ _"_

" _Of course."_

She realized for the first time that she had been clawing at the tile, pooling all of her strength into pulling herself forward, into pushing herself off the ground, into doing the slightest damn thing to put herself into the middle of the scene. But by the time she realized it, the ghostly figures had already begun to disperse, and the golden light had already begun to dim into pitch darkness.

* * *

 **AUGUST 14, 1969 — 12:49 PM**

Eleanor jolted awake to the scent of brine deep in her lungs and the sound of retching from somewhere behind her.

Beyond that, the first thing that drew her attention was the large crack in the porthole of her helmet, large enough to obscure her view, and the sensation of some moisture that had seeped inside. She couldn't remember whether it had been broken by the splicer that had grabbed her or by the bathysphere's collision course, or even by her apparent crash landing onto this floor, but whatever the cause, it was of no use to her now.

She fumbled with the fastenings, then tugged it off with a grunt. With the porthole out of the way, she could now see where they had landed.

The room looked exactly the same as the one in her dream, but only so far as its layout was concerned. The golden light was gone, leaving only the deep blue glow of the ocean outside to illuminate the room. The cracked tile floor was slick and glistening with seawater, and the tables and seats she was so sure had once been so artfully arranged were now overturned or broken to splinters.

An empty poster frame still hung on the wall before her, torn fragments of paper still clinging to its edges.

She turned to look to her side, through the wide glass window to the outcropping they had first crashed into. The bathysphere was still there, completely flooded where it sat wedged into the broken clamshell-shaped sign, but although it had destroyed some portion of the sign's flickering neon words, her genetic memory stirred with recognition and filled in the blanks: _MANTA RAY LOUNGE._

In the back of her mind still hung the picture of this place from a time long ago, before she could have ever seen it for herself, before its gilded decor had faded into forgotten darkness. It only made the reality of her surroundings, broken and waterlogged, all the more grim.

The retching noise came from behind her again, and this time she was alert enough to look to its source: Anders doubled over on his hands and knees, head touching the floor as he sputtered and coughed out the last of the water in his lungs.

So he had survived after all. For a long, unsettling moment, Eleanor truly didn't know whether to be relieved or not.

Despite her hesitation, she reached over to place a hand on his back. He didn't move beneath her touch, but he was shaking like a leaf.

"Are you all right, Mr. Anders?"

Slowly, his back rose and fell as he sucked in a deep breath, and then he lifted his head to look around.

"How..."

Before he could finish, the floor beneath them began to quake. As the rumble spread up to the walls around them, rattling the glass windows in their steel frames, Eleanor realized with horror that only one thing could be the cause.

"Stay quiet—"

She glanced around the room for anything that could possibly serve as cover, and as soon as she found the one table that still stood upright beneath the wide window, she quickly grabbed Anders and tugged him with her to crouch beneath it. He clearly wasn't alert enough to help drag himself there, not just yet, but he didn't resist her efforts either.

"What—"

" _Shh!_ "

The rumbling was audible now, sinking into her very bones, as a great shadow fell over the already darkened room. It was soon followed by a bright light—not the soft golden hue that had illuminated her ghostly memory of this place, but rather a harsh yellow glare that poured itself into every corner it could possibly reach.

It felt as though an eternity had passed before the rumbling faded to still silence, the bright yellow light finally retreated, and the great shadow passed over them. Eleanor took a deep breath, her first since the shadow appeared.

"What _was_ that?"

Anders was still shaking beside her, and he stared at her with widened eyes. Eleanor didn't feel bold enough just yet to check whether the coast was clear, so she remained where she was for another moment longer.

"He must have been looking for the bathysphere..."

" _Who?_ "

Briefly, Eleanor stared at Anders with her own look of surprise. How long could someone stay in Rapture and not know the answer to that question?

"The Mariner."

His brow furrowed, and into his face came a look of understanding. So he had heard of the Mariner after all, apparently, though Eleanor found herself doubting just how much he knew. But that didn't matter now.

"Why..." He stared at the ground, as though searching for his words, then shook his head. " _Why?_ "

Perhaps her doubts would be confirmed. Eleanor took a deep breath, then climbed out from their hiding spot to look out through the window. The sign remained, though the bathysphere had vanished.

"That's just what he does," she said as she stared at the sight. "I should have known better... He'll go after anything that moves about in the water—"

"No, I mean—" Anders grunted as he pulled himself out from under the table and up to his feet. "Lamb—your mother is the one who controls that thing, isn't she? Why would she have it do anything that could _kill_ you?"

She looked at Anders then, unconsciously tilting her head in confusion. The thought wasn't one that had occurred to her, though not without reason.

"My mother has no more power over the Mariner than anyone else in the city," she said. "She only says that she does so the people won't live in fear, or ever think of crossing her... So they'll all think he was always meant to be part of the plan."

"You mean it..." He stumbled over the word before mirroring Eleanor: "He wasn't?"

"No."

Eleanor took another long look through the window before she turned to survey the rest of the room.

"We should go," she said, glancing back to Anders. "Mother might not have any control over the Mariner, but she'll probably have splicers after us any minute now."

There was a look of unease in his face, made obvious in the knit of his brow. But he made no indication of dissent.

"All right," he said with a nod. "I'll follow you."

She nodded in return, then took another deep breath before heading for the doorway at the far end of the room.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, that singing voice still echoed down from the high vaulted ceiling, crooning words too distantly for her to make out; the chandeliers above were still brightly lit, showering radiant brilliance upon the patrons below. Memories sparked to life, whispering to her limbs of all the things they'd once done here: her legs had danced to the tune of some old doo-wop that played through the speakers; her fingers had lit a cigarette with a snap to the delight of her giggling date; her mouth had tasted watered-down whiskey while her hand worked the shoulder of a prospective partner...

But not a single one of these experiences had ever been her own. They littered the floor about her as drifting ghosts, flickering and playing out like film reels of dead men's memories upon the backdrop of a cold, wet, dimly-lit ruin.

Anders had already gone some steps ahead of her, though his focus was just as drawn by their surroundings as her own. He stared up at the dark ceiling, at the barely-suspended chandeliers, and back down to the ruined tables and signs of chaos on the floor around them, that same expression of unease on his face all the while.

"What is this place?"

Eleanor hadn't known the first thing about it, but now that they were here, the answers rose from the depths of her mind as easily as if they'd always been there. In some sense, she supposed they always had been, or at least since she'd first been dosed with recycled ADAM.

"The Manta Ray Lounge," she said softly. From those few words, it felt as though the rest fell naturally into place: "In Fontaine's Department Store..."

"What?"

There was a note of confusion in his voice, and it showed on his face as he continued to look around. She found it somewhat startling herself, just how easily the information was coming to her.

"This was the building we were passing by," she continued, more to herself than to Anders, "before the Mariner attacked us... It must have been."

"No..."

When Eleanor looked to Anders again, she found that the look of unease on his face was now closer to distress.

"Mr. Anders?"

"This wasn't..." He took a step back, leaned his weight against the bar counter behind them and held onto it with a white-knuckled grip. "I don't..."

He made a pained noise and pressed a hand to his forehead. Just beneath it, Eleanor could see his nose dripping with blood.

"Mr. Anders—" She was too alarmed to do anything but stand and stare. Had something broken in his nose? Had he hit his head that hard in the crash? "What's wrong?"

He made no immediate answer; he only pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled in a sharp _hiss_ as he leaned his head forwards with another pained grunt. Eventually, though, he muttered, "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," she said warily, then just as warily began to approach him. She could only pray that somewhere in her sea of memories were those of a doctor; she'd brought the man this far, and for the first time she was feeling reluctant to let him fall behind. "Let me—"

She'd barely touched a hand to his bloodied face before he flinched away, causing her to flinch back in turn.

"I'll be fine."

When Anders looked up to meet her gaze, there was a peculiar distance in his stare.

"I've never heard of this place."

Eleanor could only wonder at how he'd changed the subject so easily. Then again, some part of him seemed eager to put this, whatever _this_ had just been, behind them, and she couldn't blame him for that.

"It's..." She shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts from earlier. "You wouldn't have, if you'd only been here for a few weeks. After Fontaine was killed, Andrew Ryan had the place shut down."

His eyes narrowed, once again filled with confusion. "Andrew Ryan..."

"Not that it stopped people from getting in." More memories flickered in her mind, memories of picked locks and shattering glass, of dodging bullets behind crates packed with seized goods... "We should still be able to get back to Rapture from here...as long as the Mariner doesn't find us again."

At the mention of the Mariner, Anders visibly went rigid. To his credit, though, he kept his voice calm.

"And then... Then I can get to my little girl, right?"

Again, some small part of her wondered whether Anders would make it that far. But Eleanor nodded nevertheless.

"That's right."

Anders took another deep breath, then moved his hand to wipe the blood from his face. He only succeeded in smearing it further, but he didn't seem to care.

"Then let's go."

He pushed off the counter and began to stride ahead. Eleanor watched him for a moment, then looked down at her upturned hand; some of the blood from when she had touched his face still remained on the fingers of her gauntlet.

There was something about this man that was beyond her understanding, something she doubted he would willingly divulge to her, and it set her on edge. It ate at her, triggering some deeply-set instinct that warned her of danger to come.

But was it truly her own instinct, or that of someone long dead and forgotten?

No matter what the answer to that might have been, there was no time to ponder it now. For all her power, she had no way of knowing whether she would need his help again by the time she got back to her father.

Her father...

Eleanor clenched her hands into tight fists as she caught up with Anders' pace. Above all else she needed to return to her father, no matter what she had to do in order to get there.


	7. Housewares

**AUGUST 14, 1969 — 1:20 PM**

In the cold, misty dark that waited beyond the Manta Ray Lounge lay a profound sense that nothing alive belonged in this place.

The space was wide and vast, more so than any place Eleanor could ever remember seeing with her own eyes in Rapture, but that did little to avert the sensation that the ocean outside could swallow this entire building whole at any moment. The lowest level of the multi-tiered floor was entirely flooded, and a thin but steady stream of water from the ceiling high above seemed to ensure it would stay that way. Walkways and staircases sat suspended between gigantic pillars, yet each and every one had either collapsed or looked as though it would cave beneath the smallest weight. Huge, shattered display cases dotted the floor, each one containing a fallen, rusted out bathysphere; atop one at the very center of the room hung a broken neon sign, still sparking and flickering out the words _1959 MODEL YEAR_.

Anders stood beside her, similarly surveying the scene. It was all Eleanor could do not to watch him warily, as though he might start bleeding all over again.

"Fontaine's Department Store..."

He seemed to be saying the words to himself. Eleanor could only guess at what gears must have been turning in his mind.

"How much do you know about Rapture?" she asked tentatively, choosing her words carefully. "About...before my mother, and all of this, I mean."

It seemed unlikely to her, after all, that even a wandering topsider could spend much time in Rapture without gaining some familiarity with a name like _Fontaine_ , what with how the man had plastered it virtually everywhere. Then again, she supposed that whatever knowledge she'd gained from her doses of ADAM over the years might have given her some bias in that regard.

Anders set his jaw before he answered. "I know as much as I ever needed to," he said quietly, then started to take cautious strides ahead.

It made sense, Eleanor reasoned. One would have had to know at least a few things about Rapture in order to even find the place, surely, as well as a few more in order to survive here for as long as he had so far. But just how many were enough?

She pondered this as she followed behind him, and only stopped when he did.

"Wait—" He pointed to another flickering sign across the way. " _Service bay—_ There should be bathyspheres in there, right?"

"Yes, but..." Eleanor couldn't keep the wariness from her voice as she watched, then followed his approach on the bay. "Why?"

"If people got them in here, then we should be able to get one out, right?" His tone only grew with intensity as he spoke. "If we can find one that still works, we can pilot it out of here and back to Rapture—"

"Are you mad?"

Anders stopped then, and turned to face her with a bemused look. "What?"

Eleanor might have well had the same sort of look on her own face, but her disbelief at what she had just heard from him was more than enough to keep her from realizing it. "You do realize that the Mariner is still out there, don't you? What's going to stop him from catching us again?"

"Why _would_ he catch us again?" Somehow, Anders seemed fixated on the idea. "He already lost us once, didn't he? If he's that desperate for prey, he's got the entire rest of the city to prowl, doesn't he?"

"He _took_ our bathysphere, remember?" There was no other explanation as to how it could have disappeared from the wreckage in the span of the Mariner's appearance. "He must have realized by now that we're not still _in_ it, and the only other place we could have gone is _here._ He'll be waiting for us, I know."

"How?"

He spoke with desperation now, a clear desperation that might have given Eleanor some pause if not for the roiling dissension in the back of her mind, back beyond her own realm of thought, seething with an anger she had yet to fully grasp.

"How can you _know_ that? If there's still a chance—"

" _No!_ "

The word escaped her with more force and volume than she had ever intended, and for the first time she realized that her entire body was shaking. Anders was visibly taken aback; somehow, she found a struggle in bringing herself back down to a reasonable tone.

"That's not a chance I'm willing to take, Mr. Anders." Her voice trembled as much as the rest of her did, and her hands were clenched into the tightest fists she could manage. "Not for my father...and not for Susie, either."

Where had this anger come from, and how had it so suddenly taken hold of her?

Briefly, very briefly, her thoughts turned back to that golden dream— _everything_ _'s been ruined_ —and how, despite the beauty that had surrounded her, that voice had only filled her with rage.

Why had that happened? What sort of link could possibly lie between that rage and the anger she felt now, which she still struggled to quash?

It was in the midst of this quandary that Eleanor realized rather suddenly that Anders had yet to respond. He stared at her with wide eyes, but eventually pulled his gaze away and raked a hand through his hair.

"All right... You're right."

She could only wonder whether it was her outburst or something else that finally led him to concede.

"But—if that's the case, then how _are_ we supposed to get out of here?"

Eleanor took a deep breath. She had to set as much of that anger aside as possible to call up her inherited memories of this place.

"In the main building..." Slowly, surely, images of the place came to full light in her mind. "On the first floor... There's a bathysphere station."

"But—"

" _But—_ " She had to think harder to see the path. "But below that is a footpath...a maintenance tunnel, connecting the building to a transit hub. If we can get through the doors there, then we'll have a straight shot back to Rapture—without having to expose ourselves to the ocean."

At first, he still seemed dubious of her plan. When he spoke, his voice was still tinged with disbelief.

"How _do_ you know all of this?"

She hesitated, wondering how easily he would understand if she tried to explain. Just how much did he know about ADAM and its function? How much had he learned about her mother's plans for her?

At any rate, there was no time to stand around much longer. Eleanor glanced around until she found the direction her memory told her would lead them to the exit, and she began to walk.

"Come on," she called behind her. "The quicker we get out of here, the better."

Thankfully, Anders followed close behind rather than hang back or press the issue. "Any particular reason why?"

"Aside from my mother's splicers, you mean?" She would have hoped that'd be reason enough. Still, in all the images her genetic memory had played before her mind's eye, one in particular did rise above the rest. "This place was built with some very bold construction... All it would take is one good blast in just the right spot to send the whole complex sinking down to the seafloor."

"One good blast, huh..."

"That, _or_ some outside interference by somebody with the approximate size and strength of the Mariner."

That seemed to be enough to get Anders to quicken his step.

Outside of the tiered plaza was an open concourse, flanked by more wide windows past a clouded chrome railing. Eleanor found herself feeling uneasy as she looked through it, to the still-bright lights of the city beyond it, as though the Mariner might reappear at any moment.

"So... Why do you know so much about this place?"

Evidently, Anders hadn't forgotten the subject at all. Eleanor chewed her lip, wondering how best to answer him; she didn't come up with that answer until they'd reached the elevator at the end of the concourse.

"Do you know what my mother was planning to do with me, Mr. Anders?"

She pressed the button to call the elevator—from the sound of grinding metal, it seemed to still be in some state of function—and turned to see that Anders had a frown on his face.

"I know she said you were going to be the one to save mankind," he said cautiously. "At least, that's what everyone I talked to seemed to believe. And that she called you... 'Utopian'?"

Eleanor nodded. "She knew that through ADAM, one's memories could be preserved and shared with another... And she also knew that, through genetic reconditioning, ADAM could be used to modify one's behavior."

All at once, all trace of emotion—save his stony frown—fell from Anders' face.

"Is that what she was doing to you?"

It would have been easy to simply answer _yes_ , but as the elevator arrived and they carefully stepped inside, Eleanor felt she needed to explain further.

"After she took over Rapture and got access to all the research in Ryan Industries, she got this idea that...that she could make the _perfect human being_ , according to her ideology: someone who would have no thoughts or wants or desires of their own, but would _only_ work for the common good. And..."

The elevator shuddered to a halt.

"And she decided that person would be me."

The doors slid open to the ground floor, but Anders made no move to exit just yet.

"Why you?" The disbelief in his voice was stronger than ever before. "Why...her own _daughter?_ "

"Because she couldn't use anyone else." She stepped out of the elevator instead, then stopped for just a moment to watch for which direction the ghosts in her mind went. "The only reason she'd ever _had_ me was to help her complete her life's work, after all... And my condition only made me even more of an appropriate subject."

"What condition?"

Some part of her wondered if perhaps she wasn't speaking a bit too freely about herself. Then again, it wasn't as if she could think of any possible way Anders could use this information against her, no matter how dead set on not trusting the man her instinct might have been.

"I was a Little Sister once." Her voice softened as she began to walk down the ghost-lit path, down a cracked marble staircase and into another concourse surrounded by shuttered, derelict shops. Bright lights shone from high above in her distant memory, crowding out what little she remembered of the orphanage and all that came after. "My mother, and one of her scientists... They managed to cure me of my mental conditioning, but that was all they could do."

Anders said nothing, only followed close behind. Eleanor hardly knew whether to be grateful for it or not.

"So, I was left with the ability to process ADAM... Huge amounts of it, that is." She stepped gingerly past a fallen beam, then glanced back to watch Anders do the same. "And it was _huge amounts_ that my mother needed, in order to transform me into the perfect entity for her plan..."

"All of that ADAM..."

From the trailing sound of his voice, Eleanor realized that Anders had come to a stop, which brought her to a stop as well. When she turned to face him, she found him looking into the distance rather than anywhere near her.

"So that's how..."

Eleanor nodded, though she wasn't certain whether or not he could see it. "That's right... And that's how I'm able to use all these plasmid powers as well, I suppose."

At that, Anders' brow furrowed and he finally focused his gaze on Eleanor. "If that's the case, then... Why did you even need my help to get out of there?"

"Because..." It was a difficult answer, and it was one Eleanor had to consider very carefully as she bit her lip. "Because I haven't had much opportunity to practice them, Mr. Anders. If mother had her way, she would have kept me even more weak and sedated than she already did."

The frown was making its way back to Anders' face as he started walking again. "And that's why she sedated you—to keep you from using those powers against her?"

"In part, yes."

Just ahead of them lay another open room, where seawater leaking from towering heights above had flooded the bottommost floor. High walls adorned with wide, cracked monitor screens circled around the massive pillar at the center, where another neon sign flickered in the dark: _ELECTRONICS._

There were more windows on either side of them, more direct views between the ocean outside and vice versa, and this more than anything else—more than the difficulty of what she was about to acknowledge, even more than the ghostly sights that milled about on the floor below them—was what gave her pause.

"But it was also because..." She chewed her lip again. "Even though my condition meant that I should have been immune to ADAM's mutagenic properties... She must have worried that something would...go _wrong._ "

There was a long pause before Anders spoke again.

"What could possibly go so wrong that drugging you up would have prevented it?"

She'd had a feeling that Anders wouldn't immediately understand. She had also had a feeling that she would end up divulging this part of it at some point anyway. But that didn't make it even the slightest bit easier.

"I hadn't been her first choice, you know." She stepped down the stairs and tread carefully through the knee-high water as she spoke. "She performed those experiments on another subject, a grown man—a volunteer... But the ADAM was too much for him. It poisoned his mind, and it mutated him into...into a _monster._ "

In her peripheral view, Eleanor saw Anders step beside her. She was too focused on the window to notice much else, too focused on watching for any sign of movement, as though their conversation could be heard from the waters beyond.

"Mother tried to keep him contained in the laboratories, she tried to take his ADAM, to find some way to restore his sanity, but he escaped... And now they call him the Mariner."

There was another long pause. Eleanor didn't realize she had come to a stop until Anders spoke again.

"So, wait—what you're saying is... She kept you sedated out of fear that you would become like the _Mariner?_ "

That was the easy way of saying it. Rather than point that out, though, Eleanor only nodded.

"Instead of transforming into the perfect selfless being," she said, and not without some bitterness, "he became utterly warped by anger and hate. So she tried to keep me as quiet as..."

But before she could finish, a realization began to dawn upon her.

" _Everything's been goddamn ruined—"_

"Eleanor."

Those ghostly words were still echoing in her mind by the time Anders' voice sank in, and she turned to him with a start. Curiously, there was a look of concern written plainly on his face.

"That's not going to happen." Just as puzzling as the concern on his face was the certainty in his tone. "You seem like you've got a good head on your shoulders; I doubt you'll be turning into some kind of _monster_ anytime soon."

Her mouth felt dry, but she mustered the will to speak anyway.

"I know."

Anders watched her for another moment longer, pressing his lips together as though he still had something to say, but eventually turned and began to continue to the other side of the room. Eleanor didn't follow him just yet.

How could she, after all, with the knowledge that she might have very well just lied to his face?

How could Eleanor know that this sleeping fury in her blood wasn't just the same as what created the Mariner, and how could she know that she wouldn't eventually succumb to it? What would happen to her if she did?

What would happen to anyone else, for that matter?

She looked out through the window again, still spotting no sign of the Mariner, before she turned her gaze downward to the water all around her. Whatever light that shone down from the flickering signs above had broken into rippling waves, dashing into a multitude of scattered pieces that lapped and wavered about the harsh outlines of her armored legs.

She was beginning to wonder whether the question should not have been _if_ , but rather _when._


End file.
